The Artists
by Princess-Of-Callow
Summary: Half past six, just before the sun tentatively dips below the crest of a reddening horizon, an unbidden doubt in Tifa reminds that the past can always have some, if not all, determination of the future.


**A part of me thinks I should have just made this a second chapter in the Altruists, but it just did not _feel_ like a total continuation of it. Even if it does take place a day after. It is difficult to explain why, so for now, just play along!**

 **I still don't own final fantasy vii.**

 **I was actually listening to 'colors' by Halsey writing this. Lol. I don't know who she is but the song made me want to write this up.**

* * *

Tifa drew a breath as dawn's rays scintillated through the diaphanous fabric of her red tinted drapes.

Stretching her toes, she rolls over and releases a disgruntled whine when the sunshine hits her eyelids, bristling at the vacancy of the left side of her mattress. She had expected to be greeted with Cloud's sleeping form. But the ache in the back of her eyes proved no broad back lay before her to shield from the caustic glare of daylight.

Her outstretched arm was met with only the balmy air of her brightening room. She rolls back over and decides that, today, morning has come too early.

She who was more than content to rise, shine and kick off the matutinal grind of menial labor she'd routinized, smarted at the intrusion of sun beams. She would have begged and pleaded with the moon to stay a bit longer if it meant Cloud would stick around.

Tifa sighs as the corners of her still-bruised lips pull into a mawkish grin.

His presence is but a precarious luxury, but it was likely the best one she had.

He had an uncanny ability to disappear without detection. With a fluidity and grace dexterously compassed by only Cloud.

The tang of his scent persists in the heady air lingering above her bed. Her nose drew in the fragrant vestiges of his overnight stay and she trembled with recollection of last night's events.

Her heart beat jumps as she relives the moment he'd told her he loved her too.

Scenting a discernible air of salacious satisfaction clinging to her body, Tifa pulls the comforter taut across her nude form in luscious remembrance.

Only to fling it away.

The day would not wait for her to be ready to get up. She lifts herself from her bed, wraps herself in a towel and saunters to the bathroom in long, jubilant strides.

Opening and closing the door behind her, she began to question the lack of a line at the bathroom door. It was also a wonder Marlene and Denzel were not the ones to come and wake her up.

They must have left for class before saying good morning. Today was Monday, she did not open doors today. The bar is secluded to Tifa until they come back.

Stepping out of the towel and into the lukewarm cascade of water, the heat reminds Tifa of what took place just a wall away. She still could feel him around her, feel him under her. Just as much as the pleasure cutting through her like the tapered edge of a scalding blade.

And she figures that is a side effect of her very first time; constant physical reminders. In her hips, she can feel the soreness she had anticipated the night before. In her hair, she can still feel the strokes of his fingers. And in her ears, she can still hear him, clear as a bell. They had made quite a ruckus; it was a timely happenstance that a thunderstorm would dampen the noisy effects of their intimacy. Sparing Tifa an uncomfortable conversation with the children.

She wonders if Cloud had yesterday's stormy romp on his mind too. Was he thinking about her wherever he was?

She harks back to what gave rise to this moment in time. A moment where she reminisces about the sensual events of a night with Cloud. How long they had talked. What they had talked about. It was no arbitrary ventilation, that was for sure. She wasted no sentence. Her words were circumspectly deliberated in her head with an attentive conviction. Save for her little tantrum.

The joy bled from her once happy countenance as she shut off the tepid stream of water. She hoped he wasn't mad at her for that. Because they both ended up letting so much out. She already felt lighter.

"All that dilly-dally." Tifa chuckled to herself.

It was hard to believe that all it took to achieve their new status was a bit of listening.

Everything from Cloud's delayed responses to the inanimate cast of his profile spoke to her need to console him.

Naturally, the harshness of her words incarnated her bubbling agitation, exactingly peppering the muted savoir with questions of his silence and his isolated behavior. His far away expression and body language telegraphing his inquietude.

She recalls how distant his gaze had remained until they had managed to redirect the conversation, outmaneuvering the vexation that had fostered a growing tension.

From there, things began to look up. They spoke in concert, with unprecedented unison. The synchronous exchange felt frictionless. As if rehearsed to sublimity. Felt so long overdue. Tifa was able to shift closer to him and eventually pluck his hand from where it retreated to fidget with the folds of her bed sheets.

It was like the calm _after_ the storm.

Walking to her room, she giggles thinking of how sheepish he'd been at first. Drying her hair, she remembers the skin of his brow, slick with sweat, rubbing against her own. She pulls on clothes recalling how strong his fingers were around hers when he filled her. She thinks of how chaste their first kiss had been while dispensing minty toothpaste onto the head of a brush. Soon her face beat red looking back on other things she had put her lips on.

She brings her fingers to her mouth and he is still all she can taste.

Tifa's hand swipes at the cool, misty surface of her mirror. Her reflection is unchanged. The same dark curtain of silken hair spilling over her shoulders and past the prepossessing slope of her waist. The same winning ruddiness in her cheekbones complimenting the fairness of her features.

However, her eyes took a second longer to recognize. Their color still reminiscent of sumptuously aged wine, the undertone akin to the sweetest glazes of honey.

But they were happier. More awake. More aware.

More open.

They were still hers. But she feels as though she's looking not into her own eyes, but the eyes of another. Someone she did not know. But it was a person she knew she would always be sorely envious of.

A person who'd experienced the first effects of love and sweet interlude with the only other person they cared to.

With Cloud. The person who had touched him and kissed him.

And it was her.

"Me." She whispers as she smiles at the person in the mirror.

Her footsteps are quiet as she descends the steps. Downstairs, Tifa immediately regretted deferring her nightly maintenance drills.

She examines the special boards on the far wall, chalked with last week's specials. She frowns at the emptied steins that sit scattered atop her rugged tables. On her left, bar stools and high chairs inappositely interrupted the artless terrain of her bar. But in the sink awaited the cumulative payoff of last night's little get-together and chore neglect. She was prepared to swear that Cloud left so early for the explicit purpose of avoiding that mountain of dishes.

She remembered her earlier days as a budding hostess, when keeping up with place after hours wore on her jaded demeanor. A day of working will do that to a woman if she is the bartender, the bouncer and in charge of stock. Especially when she had to deal with the sticky mess that is left behind after customers scrape the soil and mud from their boots on the slabs of wood at the base of tables. Overlooking the expensive floor mats that lay inside and outside of the bar. The superfluity of it all.

But now, she thought it a most rewarding process and it was her only free time. And in this time, she can be left to her musings. And some overzealous singing never hurt anybody, so long as no one walked in on her again. And should she feel reflective, keeping a constant pace around the bar and sweating minor details makes her think of her mother's voice and her cleaning lectures, heavy with didactic connotation.

It was easy to lose track of time when she was busy, and that was the plan.

Cloud is never home before five but never later than eight. Tifa has seen that he is usually home by dinner. Around the early evening.

"Until six." She sighed.

The pop of her knuckles is loud when she cracks her fingers.

* * *

Mechanically, Tifa ran a damp and stained cloth over the glossy surface of the counter top. The shine did not warrant the second soak, but toiling the quality of her bar was the established order of her world.

The chairs have been uniformly restored to their respective tables. The stools are counted and stand adjacent the bar. The tables themselves were polished and buffed. That included the mud daubed bases. And the bar was wiped down a few times as to obviate any grime that may have clung to the surface. Any bartender worth their salt does not fall for the specious appearance of _clean_ counter tops.

The dishes were the most demanding this morning, the piddling throb in her triceps connotes an impending soreness. She wished the kids were home, they jumped at opportunities to help Tifa spruce the bar up. Her earliest assumptions that she was, by extension, working the children to hasten the production fell wide of the mark.

She supposed they found challenge in the chores. They made the work into a contest of efficiency. Who is better at cleaning the floor boards? Who can take the trash out faster? They had even made a point to actively designate Tifa as their score keeper, looking to her to closely monitor the progress of the bar keeping. And which child did a better job of progressing it. A preoccupied Tifa would always acknowledge them by wordlessly intimating her approval of the momentum.

She took care to not play favorites.

And when they washed fine dishes and delicate wine glasses, a frown of concentration always played about their lips. Who could break the least dishes?

She giggles as she eyes the updated special boards. Her fingertips wore a powdery white and it stung a bit, she thinks it is because she may have nick or two on the pads of her thumbs. Most likely from scrubbing away at the dishes.

She paid especial attention to punctuate particular sections of the bill of fare with bold characters and dainty calligraphic swirls to spotlight items of the menu she wished to foreground. Guaranteed to garner at least marginally increased traction. So, the sting was not without its merit.

She wished he could have been here to join her in her quest for cleanliness. Cloud was always quick to help her with anything he felt would go more smoothly if he intervened. After hours and all. She liked to think he lent his time to her and not the bar. The transparent sentiment kept her on her toes.

She had no compunctions with his trend of irregular fits of congeniality. In fact, she had grown to cater to them. Although, at first, it was easy for many to stamp him as 'tense'.

Her female regulars that had developed a penchant for motorcycles and big swords had pointed out that he ought to 'loosen up'.

That is, after they had laboriously gleaned that drawling their dulcet niceties to him would not keep Cloud at their table any longer than he needed to be. It happened so frequently, that browbeating Cloud's female fan base from behind the bar had become automatic and habitual for her.

It was only natural. It was an evolutionary imperative to be vigilant and particular about who is around a mate or person of intrigue.

She was really just following nature's rules.

Though the women rarely encroach on the boundaries Tifa took care to set up, it was obvious that it was difficult on their wavering wills.

But Cloud did a well enough job of reinforcing those boundaries of hers.

A smirk always finds her lips when she eavesdrops on the fatuity; women volunteering summaries of their weeks to him, coltishly maintaining that Cloud shorten their names into sugary nicknames.

Only to hear Cloud gracefully dismiss the cloying paeans of adoration and the stodgy cajolery like swatting flies.

But with a bit of steering and some instruction, soon he'd learned to navigate the playing field with curiously quick ease.

She had to keep them around, of course.

The love-struck girls are merely representative of the brand of people she had to welcome inside regularly. She had grown accustomed to them, so she would get used to these while assiduously ministering to their highly exploitable weakness for Cloud.

They liked to buy the fancier drinks and that made Tifa less averse to the company she kept.

It hardly registered to Cloud anyhow. As just about everyone that visited the bar had a reason to be happy to see him.

He was a terrifically lucrative figure around the bar and, wanting to be a good hostess, she did her best to keep the buyers happy. And that meant keeping him around. Easy enough, but only at the exercise of tact. Or so she had initially thought.

Behind closed doors, he had surprised her one day.

"I like the crowds; they make me feel...alive." He said, eyes seeking estimation.

She smiled thinking of the times she had first seen Cloud cottoning on to his appreciation for familiar and unfamiliar company alike.

Hands on her hips, Tifa grins at her handiwork. The chores were all done and the air in her bar was categorically thick with the promise of hospitality.

She realized about a quarter after six that she would be serving no customers today and that she could put some things off. But it was also a quarter after six that she had begun to grow impatient, capitulating to her body's spontaneous responses to restlessness; finding a non-destructive physical outlet.

Oh, she remembered this. More than anything she remembered how much she hated this.

It was silly, she knew, Cloud had patently spotty patterns of arrival. Some nights he came at six-fifteen. Other nights he came at seven-forty five. She learned to not expect him anymore. Every night she wondered where he was, she found that he seemed to be consequently delayed several minutes.

But for all her eloquence, she has rancorously accepted the truth that all her attempts at dovetailing their schedules would be unsuccessful.

He had always acted independently of the clock; time was no object to him. He gets home, when he gets home. And as much as she admired this accidental philosophy, nothing rankled her nerves like a waiting game. Especially when he would be bringing the kids home.

That there was the problem.

Cloud knows that today is Monday.

He is the one who brings the kids home on Monday.

He knows that he must shelve all set delivery times to pick them up. He was to be the school's entrance before dismissal so that he might avoid the adverse influx of parents' cars. But of course, this did not make Cloud come much faster.

He and the children usually returned a while after school was over because Cloud liked to indulge them with frozen treats and extra time on Fenrir, moonlighting as their little chauffeur. The children adored the purr of the engine and the way Cloud would invite them to adjust the kickstand when it was time to get off.

But Tifa was more concerned with their safe return than with their common affinity for bikes. Where was the necessity in such a cool motorcycle if it was not fast enough to have you home on time?

Moving towards the doors, she opened them to survey the state of the alleyway. The smell of rain on the wind alone should have been enough to bring them home sooner. Just where could they be?

With a pass of her hand and a swivel on her heel, Tifa let the thought go and meant to find a distraction. Continuing on her way to make dinner, she needs only to take up her apron and ladle with renewed enterprise.

Cloud was a mutably objective sort but he was certainly no fool. If there was one thing he was always aware of, it was his surroundings. Unless it was her advances, nothing gets past his superhuman senses. And if something got past those, they would not get past his superhuman reflexes. If they should run into anything, Cloud is there to ensure it does not happen before it does.

A creak of hinges and a gust of wind alerts her to the open doors.

"Sorry, we're..."

The words suffocated in her mouth when she turned only to learn that it was Cloud who had stepped inside, not an uninformed patron.

"Hi. I mean, hey." She says, excruciating with suppressed longing.

"Hey," He looked askance at the shine bouncing off the tables and the cleaned mats which, as far as he cared to understand, were supposed to be dirty. "You've been pretty busy here, huh?" He prodded, the natural rumbling timbre in his voice curling her toes.

"I have." Tifa said, still trying to accept the fact that their first words to each other after last night were these and not something like 'Good morning' or 'How did you sleep?'.

"The place looks better than it has in a while." Came his unblinking assessment. He ran a gloved hand beneath the undersides of the bar and nodded when his fingers returned spotless.

She was keen to his dispassionate remarks like a person knows their favorite song. It was her unyielding determination that had cemented her resolve to study them resolutely.

He'd cultivated an effortless quality of unconcern. And she was candidly enthralled by it.

She had learned to count on it. Depend on it with baited breath.

She found accomplishment and a lingering sense of fulfillment in their everyday encounters, more than any fitful windfall at the bar. Cloud was her only day to day challenge, veritably personifying a game of 'Connect the Pieces'.

It was always different, but at the same time such a familiar trade of give and take. Some days she would win. Some days she would lose. Her losses gainsay her acquired understanding, but those days reminded her of how much she had left to learn.

Every loss counts more than every victory in her eyes. Besides, his victories spur her on like nothing else.

She found challenge in Cloud like the children found it in housework.

He could make her so mad. So authentically worried. But when he walks into her world, with that steady cadence of loud footsteps and that hauntingly disarming look in his eyes, she knows she does not stand a chance.

Not against someone like that.

Every concern and aggravation would bow to the vastitude of her burdensome love for this man.

This ruinously gorgeous man.

He looked a bit scruffy today. Like the wind had swept traces of dirt onto his cheeks from the rides to and from deliveries. His natural, flaxen spikes appeared a bit mussed. Not that his hair was ever tame in the first place.

It gave him a ruggedness, one unique to Cloud who could somehow make unkempt appear intentional and pleasing.

She was staring again, she caught herself but did not understand why. She was pretty sure she had made it crystal clear to Cloud just how much he captivated her.

"I assume you're wondering why Marlene and Denzel are not with me," Cloud's voice cuts through the silence, her stillness drawing him to this conclusion.

So absorbed in her reverie, the missing children did not register in her mind until he had said something about it. But thinking back, she did not hear the rapid pace of smaller feet ambling closely behind Cloud. Distress began to nestle in the pit of her stomach. Gone were the dazzled musings and the spellbound lapses.

"Yes, what happened?" Her voice raised an octave.

He seemed to notice that his hair was messier than usual, so he ran leather clad fingers through the brightness of his disheveled tresses. "When I made it there, they weren't waiting for me"

"Weren't waiting for you?" Tifa's palms grew clammy, sweating beads of worry. "Cloud, where are the kids?"

The calm in his eyes and the way he looked more annoyed than concerned made her feel like he had more to tell her than just where they were.

"I was there for a long time, looking for them all over the place." He sighed as he shifted his weight between legs, as though he had to, like he had exerted them enough to cause him a bit more than a twinge of discomfort.

"Until Barret called me." He revealed elliptically.

"Well, what did he have to say." Tifa, still nonplussed, sits down and subconsciously runs her fingers atop the bar counter, where Cloud had leaned into his hand. But because of her moist fingertips, she only managed to spread the smear wider and even clearer.

"He wanted to apologize for not calling before he picked up the kids early."

"Early? But then, why aren't they here?" Tifa recognized that Barret was just as unpredictable as Cloud, but he was so in his own eccentric and fickle way. She would have acclimated to this offbeat habitude like she had with Cloud, but Cloud's changeability and flightiness is different.

It is...constant. Patterned and computational. Rhythmic and overall dependable.

Connected.

Barret was the way he was because he knew they could put up with it.

"Did he say where he took them? And what for?"

"He says he wants to spend overdue time with Marlene. And he wanted Denzel to stick around too, so he's taking them out for some quality Barret-time." Cloud is careful to not let his dirty, gloved hands brush along the glossy wood of the bar as he makes his way around the far end, his gait slow and meticulous.

The way he moved so gracefully but economically always made her brow wrinkle with impassioned admiration. He moved so chastely, so perfunctorily. But simultaneously, every gesture looked singularly choreographed. Like he had practiced every superficial, day to day movement in front of a full-sized mirror for hours on end until every spin and swivel looked like some kind of unforced sway of his body. Like a dance.

She doubted this was possible as he did not even own a full-sized mirror, but it was enough to make her wonder.

Could it be his combat expertise carrying into his everyday motions? He always moved like some kind of haphazard slinky in battle, it should not be too difficult to integrate that into his daily twists and turns.

It made her eyes linger. And _how_ it made them wander. What was it about him, she often asked herself? What does it matter? It is real, she tells herself.

"He had Denzel begging to come along at the mention of ice cream." Cloud says, fingering the strap of his pauldron. He stops in front of her and she can briefly smell the metal in his zipper and the motor oil on his pants that suggests he had wiped his hands on the fabric. She could even identify the thinnest layer of sweat, the one that shined indistinctly on his regal collarbone.

So visceral, so true to his calling.

"Sounds about right." Tifa says absently, her voice drawling. She is suddenly aware of their alarmingly close proximity.

Cloud's hand moved to hover above his front pocket. "Did you want to speak to them?"

"I think Barret can handle something like their appetites." She says leaning over the counter to snag a cloth from behind the bar to wipe away the smear she had worsened.

She could not care less about the smudge, she just needed to keep her hands busy. She can focus when she is busy with her hands.

In her peripheral vision, she can see Cloud tilt his head at her. The vague gesture would have gone unconsidered, were it not for the way he squinted at her. As if studying her.

Peering toward his reflection on the counter, she watches him analyze her and furtively shudders under the weight of his scrutiny. Soon, she notices that he is reciprocating her reflective gaze.

"How come you left so early today?"

Noncommittally, Cloud stares her over before blinking, breaking the indirect eye contact.

"What do you mean 'early'?"

"Early as in 'earlier than you usually leave'."

A large part of Tifa questions why she had asked. But an even larger part of her wonders why she had not asked him the moment he'd said hello.

Preoccupying herself, ponderously slighting the qualmish question had become futile and annoying about eight minutes ago. There was nothing left of her patience. Additionally, Tifa sometimes liked to yank at her dilemmas like band-aids. The sting was sharp but inconsequential, at best. Often better to tend to a graze than let it get infected.

Cloud sits on the stool beside her for a better view of her face. "It's Monday, Tifa."

She peers at him with a slight furrow on her brow. "Yes, it is."

"Haven't you noticed? I always leave at the same time on Mondays. Only today..." Timidly, he strokes at the metal of belt buckle.

"I woke up in your room." He said before continuing.

"I wake up earlier on Mondays because I know that I have to pass by the school for the kids today."

When she squints at him with a raised eyebrow he clarifies even further.

"I like to get the most deliveries I can out of the way before I have to pick them up because...I don't know, I guess I like to even things out."

Tifa can barely contain the flushed expression sure to rise as she departs from her seat.

"Really?" She says, choking down her giggle.

"Yes, I'm funny that way." He smirks and stands with her.

She wants to sigh and shake her head abashedly. But she can only turn away from him in endeavor to conceal her blushing face and red-tipped ears.

How could she ever begin to be embarrassed before the man she made love to no more than a day ago? It did not make sense, but, historically, sense played a hilariously insignificant role in her relationship with Cloud.

"So that's it, huh?"

"That's it."

"I.. uh...almost thought you were avoiding the dishes." She giggled.

It wasn't a lie.

But it wasn't all of the truth, merely an unrelated effort to shave a few details off. No, that's not right. Now she'd reached so far as to broaden the definition of 'shave a few details off' to include completely omitting the truth.

Tifa understood that she couldn't very well forget about it, much as she liked to indulge a sense of security, false or not. Still, she would massively prefer avoiding conflict to opening yet another can of worms.

Inattentively, Tifa can act like a mediator. Like an improvisational 'troubleshooter', even to issues that had yet to present themselves. But above all her labels, she liked to think she was just passerby.

Rather, a mere peacekeeper. Wanting only to get the bad things out of the way before they accumulate into something too unsightly to acknowledge.

But, she could not deny, that sometimes she just wanted to ignore something and hope it would go away. Some days she would get cornered by her tendency to retire to the upstairs and withdraw into her world of wishes and dreams.

Touting promises of novelty and whimsy, she quite often deferred to the simplicity of a nap or break. Resignedly agreeing with her reluctance to challenge a present or soon to be present issue.

It would certainly save her the time of searching for all these shortcuts.

Jeez, what a coward she could be.

Tifa can dropkick a fire breathing dragon and successfully kill it with dinner on the stove, but tell her to come clean to Cloud with a doubt she has and she forgets how to talk.

"Tifa, have you been here all day just..wondering?" Cloud begins.

"..What makes you think that?"

"Well, it would explain the state of the bar." He says, shifting his weight again.

She wasn't prepared to have Cloud start exposing contradictions to her logic.

"...What of it?"

"Well, look around." He says, an outstretched arm gesturing toward the seating area.

Giving her surroundings a once over, her eyes soon fell back on him with quirk of her brow. "There must be something I'm not seeing, Cloud."

"You're looking too hard."

"And what does that mean?" She tries, tilting her head his way.

"You've been looking too hard all day." Cloud mumbles.

"What do you mean, 'all day'?" She straightens and rests a fist against the leather on her hip. "I'm looking at the bar like you told me to."

"Well, look here then." Cloud circled around to the edge of the counter with her closely following.

Stopping at the round base of a trash bin, Tifa waits for the clarity she has still not learned will never be hers. Eventually asking, "Why are we looking at the trash?" She questions, her expression is passive.

"We're looking at that." He corrects succinctly, pointing at a discarded plastic container.

"Okay, why are we looking at an empty bottle of dish soap?" She has both hands on her hips now.

"That bottle was new. I bought it yesterday." Cloud says, searching her eyes.

She looks at him and at the empty soap bottle in expectancy of some clue as to what he could have been waiting for her to say.

"..Thank you?"

Shaking his head, he went on. "You used all of it, in one morning."

The pause that staggered her was momentary, before she shrugged, "There were a lot of dishes."

"Even so, it wouldn't take a full bottle to wash one sink-full of dishes." He countered skillfully.

"Why are you so sure the bottle was full?" Her voice raised noticeably. She felt it was her turn to probe for some answers now.

"You were too busy to wash the dishes yesterday, Tifa."

Tifa had never been silenced by Cloud before, it unnerved her.

"How many times did you wash these glasses? And how long were scrubbing at those bowls?" Taking her hand, he felt the pads of her fingers and noted the tiny tears in the calloused skin.

But swiftly, she pulled her hands into her chest, cross armed and eyes front.

"I'll pick up some more dish soap tomorrow if it means so much to you." She replied with startling evasion.

"What about here?" He brings her to the edge of a table.

"What am I looking at now, Cloud?"

"Did you clean these tables with some industrial strength bleach or did you just scrub at them over and over again?" He asked with careful witticism.

She was growing quite tired of this. If he knew what was on her mind, he should have approached her with that awareness by now. He did not have to jerk her around the way he was.

It was offensively obvious—what he was doing.

Pejoratively indicating every sight of her erratic cleaning incidents in a tacit display of comprehension and insight. Wholly uncalled for.

"Cloud, the tables are clean. I cleaned them. With regular polish. What is there to be discovered here?"

"But look, the paint is chipping off." He said, sliding a finger along the tender surface.

She didn't think she was being that rough.

"No one will notice." Tifa diverted aptly, as per usual.

"But I just did." He returned with duplicate nonchalance.

Tifa was too spent to keep up with Cloud's unflappable composure in the face of dispute. So, she repudiates all her better reasoning with little to no care for her swelling reservations. "Well, that's because you see these tables every day!"

"What about the menu boards? Your fingers have to be stinging from the chalk." He says observing her penmanship with subtle but discernible admiration.

"I was bored, just feeling artistic!"

Standing before the mouth of the steps, he crouches to examine them. "And the staircase, did you actually clean the steps?" He asked incredulously.

Throwing her shapely arms up, she slouches onto a nearby chair. "Well, no one else was going to!"

"You're looking to hard at things that aren't there, Tifa."

When Cloud closes in on her, she can do nothing about her shaky breathing or her quiet anticipation. Promptly, her face is level with Cloud's stomach, so she forces her vision upwards, hard as that was.

"You're looking too hard at me." He alleged, drawing back from the characteristic impassivity of his voice.

Damn him, she thought.

"Wouldn't it be easier to simply tell me what-"

"Tifa, I've lived with you for years now. I know when something is bothering you." Cloud interjected.

Tifa squints dubiously at him.

"Just not what."

That was too fast, she thought. Give him a chance.

"You've been here all day, trying to figure out why I left the morning after we," He floundered for the words that eluded his lips, "Did what we did."

Delusively, she shakes her head, "I was just.."

"Distracting yourself." He finished for her.

Curse him, she thought. She was losing.

"You were worried that I left for fear of the future," He knew a word was missing, "Again."

"You were afraid that I had come home late because of regret."

Damn it all, she thought. He'd won. He'd won this encounter. Cloud had figured her out and all from one step into the bar. Tifa is above misplaced anger attendant defeat, she accepts them with superlative grace. Still, it stirred her more than she'd care to admit—losing to him.

But in a bit of a good way. They were losses that always made her want to play again.

Losing to Cloud was just so easy for her. It is as if she is happy to lose to him. As though she facilely relinquishes the pride of triumph, when he is to be her victor.

"Cloud." She began.

"It's okay." His faltering eye contact betrayed his true disposition of her feelings. "It would be odd if you weren't." He mumbled.

"It's just that..accommodating change..has never been easy. For either of us." Tifa says, trying her hardest to remain seated.

"I mean, now that I think it through, the only one who really lost it was me." She said, dropping her shoulders.

Smiling, he crouched to meet her gaze. "It happens to the best of us." He said, smirking.

She rises from her chair, pulling him up with her. "This is just so new."

Nodding, he carefully placed a hand on the curve of her neck. "Nothing we can't get used to, right? We've conquered bigger things."

"But we knew what to expect in those scenarios." She said, ignoring the raised goosebumps on the flesh of her arms in response to his body so close to hers again.

"Yes, but knowing what was to come didn't make things much easier, did it?" He asked as he drew invisible circles on her nape with his fingers.

He was right, with respect to their occupation. However, for her, it had always been a bit different.

Back then, it was easier to get up and shake off the dirt knowing that she could expect Cloud to celebrate her for it. She would always wake up earlier knowing she could count on Cloud to bid her good morning. And whenever they were backed into a corner, it was easy for her to stay grounded knowing she could depend on his leadership.

When she could look anywhere around her and see Cloud with his sword in grip and that determined glower on his chiseled features, she was not afraid.

He gave her courage. He gave her endurance. He showed her that certitude does exist.

And that did make risking her life easier.

But they were not fighting anymore. There was nothing that compromised their future. Nothing was there to make her feel afraid.

And that's why everything is so different. So new.

Perhaps it was because they were so different.

She and Cloud were such a juxtaposition. She was always fond of that idea. Her dark hair is the consummate contrast to his bright blond. His eyes are the ultramarine blue that marries beautifully with the burgundy of her dark eyes. Their personalities coalesce into a balance that harmonized like a sonnet or work of abstract art.

But they had always been that way. That was not different.

"We have conquered bigger things." She said.

"Right, it's just a matter of being strong again." He whispered, leaning his head onto hers.

Yes, again. Just like before. And like before, they would bolster each other. Give to each other. And take from each other.

He could make her so mad.

Precipitately, she takes his lips in an abrupt rush of understanding and recognition. Letting her hands fist and crumple his sweater as her eyes fall shut and he returns her kiss with matched fervor.

Pulling away, she almost forgets to open her eyes. "We said we loved each other."

Recovering from the daze of the kiss, he does not open his eyes at all. "Meant all of it."

He could make her so authentically worried.

"You will never understand how long I'd waited for yesterday, Cloud." She whispered, her eyes burning with subdued yearning.

Cupping her face in his hands, he claimed her lips like she did his. He kissed with all the experience he knew he lacked.

But when he walks into her world.

"We don't have to wait anymore, Tifa." He says. Climbing the steps, his cripplingly heavy gaze told her to accompany him. "We're not alone. Not anymore." He adds.

She knows she does not stand a chance.

Behind the security of a closed door and atop the comfort of freshly laundered sheets, the two let loose the passion that had slowed them for hours.

Like artists, they scored the canvasses of their skin, pressing kisses and dragging tongues. In hitched breaths and lustful whines, they claimed each other. Branding their bodies with the indications of their unity. Until a rocking wave shook them, taking the last of their stamina and summarily their consciousness.

And though the day that would succeed this one, the day after that one, and the ones after that are uncertain, one thing is.

And it was them.

Though what happens next is difficult for Tifa to see, it is simple when she forgets the variables and focuses on the constants. Like Cloud, Marlene, and Denzel. Cid's smoking and Yuffie's obnoxiousness. Slow sale nights and rainy days. Even the occasional threat to humanity.

She just had to know what she could expect. Even though their future is one large, abstract work of art.

* * *

 **Annnnnnnnd that's it. Did it make yah feel a bit warm inside, lol?!**

 **Anyhow, do let me know if it was to your liking! God knows I'd be lost without some guidance. Lol.**


End file.
